Water is lapping at front doors. Boats are bobbing in gardens. The locals all acknowledge that you can hardly live next to Britain’s most famous river and then grumble when things get a little soggy.

But even old Thames hands are starting to feel nervous as recent rains and saturated soil continue to see water levels rise and rise.

Britain’s coast has endured a dramatic pummelling in recent days and a new Lake District has taken shape in Somerset. But some of our most exclusive neighbourhoods are also suffering.

Scroll down for video

Houses along the river are under threat, such as this one in Goring-on-Thames

Closer to the metropolis, the January storms are inflicting stealthier, more incremental damage.

Scenery like this has made the Thames Valley a celebrity Riviera; sail upstream from Elton and the Queen and you’ll find Wogan a couple of miles beyond Parky.

These banks have also produced some of our most popular literature, not least Three Men In A Boat and the children’s classic Wind In The Willows.

But what would Ratty, Toad and the gang have made of the dense brown torrent swirling its way through Pangbourne, Henley, Cookham and all those other handsome riverside towns that like to claim they inspired the author, Kenneth Grahame?

Sir Terry Wogan (left) and Sir Michael Parkinson (right) are both high-profile residents who live along the river

I head for the award-winning River & Rowing Museum dedicated to the Thames and all its works, including Grahame’s masterpiece.

Sadly, the museum, on the edge of Henley, is closed for the first time in its history. Toad Hall is shut.

It’s Wind in the Wallows round here. The car park is underwater and the sewage system is backing up. ‘We’re used to a bit of flooding, but this is exceptional,’ says facilities manager Andrew Brown. ‘We had a funeral party booked in for today, but we had to cancel.’

Share this article

Looking back to town, it’s impossible to determine where the Thames stops and Henley begins. The whole area is a huge pond, with the occasional signpost or park bench poking above the surface.

At nearby Hambleden, the lock is redundant. The water level is the same height at both ends and the raging weir beside the lock is now the Chilterns’ very own white water rapids.

The Hobbs family have been operating boats in Henley since 1870, but the main office is marooned from the road by several feet of water. Fifth-generation owner Jonathan Hobbs, 42, has erected a gangplank to get to his desk.

Beauty spots such as Henley, which helped inspire Kenneth Grahame while writing The Wind In The Willows, and now suffering the effects of the storms

Parts of the town are now underwater, including the River & Rowing Museum which had to cancel a booking from a funeral party because of the flooding

He has plaques on the wall to show various high water marks over the years. We are still a few inches short of the disaster that followed the sudden melting of snow in March 1947.

But this week’s flooding is on a par with the last major deluge of 2003.

Radio and TV presenter Mike Read, who lives nearby, found the water two inches from his back door yesterday. Before setting off for his daily show on BBC Radio Berkshire, he shifted what furniture he could upstairs.

‘It was like moving house in a couple of hours,’ he says.

‘Our local lock-keeper is like the Messiah. Everyone is asking him what’s going to happen next.’

A little further upstream, the village of Shiplake could, indeed, accommodate a ship right now.

Nearby Wargrave is home to assorted luminaries ranging from the Sultan of Oman to magician Paul Daniels.

Paul Daniels, who raised his house on stilts, is said to be braving out the floods in the town of Wargrave

The Sultan is elsewhere, but Mr Daniels, who fought a long battle with the council to get permission to raise his home on stilts, is braving it out.

His lane, now impassable, appears to be an additional tributary of the Thames, but he is said to be philosophical, as most people in this part of the world are — or were.

‘You get used to a certain amount of flooding, of course, but if it gets any higher then people are going to start getting worried,’ says unflappable Wargrave parish councillor, Victoria Hermon, standing outside the riverside house where her family has lived for nearly 150 years.

Her garden shed is now on the edge of what looks like a very substantial estuary.

Unfortunately for the locals, the Environment Agency warns that levels will go on rising for a few more days yet.

As of last night, the Jubilee River, a £110 million, seven-mile storm drain built to alleviate flooding around the Berkshire towns of Windsor and Maidenhead, was operating at maximum capacity for the first time in its 14-year history. Its sluice gates cannot be opened any wider.

If the water gets much higher than this, it won’t just start flooding bits of Maidenhead — and perhaps some of chef Heston Blumenthal’s neighbours in nearby Bray.

Unfortunately for those who live along the Thames' banks, water levels are expected to rise again in two days

Britain has experienced three weeks of heavy rain and flooding which has seen rivers across the country burst

It could even have the bizarre effect of submerging the 2012 Olympic rowing complex at Eton Dorney.

Just over a bridge outside Windsor, on a sharp bend in the Thames, residents of Ham Island are no longer waiting for the floods to come. It’s too late for that.

Gillie Bolton and her husband, Jim, are the local volunteer flood wardens. They have canoes tied up by the front door and are busy checking that all the residents are in one piece. ‘One neighbour is on holiday so I’ve evacuated her chickens to a nice home in Old Windsor,’ says Gillie.

radio DJ Mike Read, who lives near Henley, found floodwater two inches from his back door yesterday

She has just finished distributing a lorry-load of portable loos to neighbours whose drains have packed up. Her phone rings ceaselessly. Everyone wants to know the latest news about water levels.

‘I wouldn’t mind if this was an act of God, but it’s not. It’s a man-made problem,’ she says, echoing what seems to be the unanimous view round here.

Everyone points out that Ham Island started flooding only when the authorities opened the Jubilee River in 2002.

Having carried excess floodwater around Maidenhead and Windsor, the man-made waterway then spits it all back into the Thames just ahead of the stretch that runs past Ham Island, Wraysbury and historic Runnymede.

The residents are convinced the consequent surge effect is the cause of their problems.

‘It’s as if we are being sacrificed to protect all those expensive properties further upstream,’ says retired engineer John Morgan, 72, whose house is now entirely surrounded by water.

Like everyone else, he is angry that the Environment Agency has stopped dredging the river.

‘Bring back the dredgers and do it every year just like they used to,’ says Noel Robinson, 81, shouting at me from her window. She’s lived here since 1954 and says things are worse than ever.

A few doors away, events manager Cait Kidd and her husband David are busy shifting anything moveable upstairs. Their house sits on the junction of the river and the overspill from the neighbouring lock. It’s weirdly mesmerising to look out and see two furious torrents merging next to their garage.

A few miles away, by the mighty sluice gates of the Jubilee River, I meet the Environment Agency’s man in charge of the flood strategy for this part of the Thames.

Cookham, in Berkshire, is another idyllic town at risk of flooding if storms continue for much longer

Downstream near Gloucestershire flooding from the Thames has caused devastation to farmland and housing

Ian Tomes explains that the Jubilee project has actually saved thousands of people from flooding and that it has not made things any worse for anyone else.

‘Every time we build a flood defence anywhere, someone will say that they have been sacrificed to help someone else upstream, but it’s just not true,’ he says.

‘And dredging would make no difference at all. What we are seeing is an exceptionally high volume of water — as in 2003 — and I am afraid it still looks set to rise a little more.’

Not once in the course of two days wandering along the Thames do I hear any self-pity. No one is demanding compensation. Everyone accepts that if they want to live in a largely idyllic spot, there must be the occasional downside.

They’ll be laughing again come the summer. But for now, it’s time for bottled water, portable loos, torchlight and stoicism.

Standing next to the bungalow that was once the home of band leader Billy Cotton, Ham Island resident Linda Vittozzi points out another famous local landmark. It is the late Ernie Wise’s cabin cruiser — Wisecrack —straining on its moorings against the swirling waters.

Even Little Ern, I suspect, would be pushed to get a joke out of this.